Kindness Is Contagious: Readers share stories of kind acts

Acts of kindness are often like little miracles that appear just when you don’t know where to turn or what to do next.

I’d like to share with you several inspirational stories I’ve received from people who are so grateful kindness is contagious.

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“I had left my daughter’s home in Wisconsin and was driving back to North Dakota. I stopped at a Holiday station in Albany, Minn., and pumped gas into my car. In those days, you went in and paid after you were done pumping.

I reached for my purse and realized I had left it in Wisconsin. I went in and told the attendant about my problem. She wrote down the address of the station and told me to mail them a check when I got home. She also asked how far I was from home and if I needed any money for snacks for the road and gave me $5 extra. I offered to give her my name and address, but she said that if I weren’t an honest person, I probably wouldn’t give her the correct one anyway, so that wasn’t necessary.”

– Audrey, McVille, ND

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“I was shopping at Moorhead Center Mall, only to come out and find the battery on my car was dead. I tried calling a couple of people to help me, but they were unavailable. I walked to a nearby gas station and got in line. The lady behind the counter asked if she could help me and I told her my story. This gas station had no tow-truck equipment and she said the nearest station that could help would be way south on Eighth Street. A man standing in line said he could help me if I could get some jumper cables. I said I had none, but another young lady behind the counter said she had some I could use. So in the end, my car got started, I gave the man money to pay for the lunch date he was late for and I tipped the young lady at the gas station when I returned her jumper cables.”

– Barbara, Fargo

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“After my husband passed away, I moved from Fargo to Minneapolis to be closer to my family. My son warned me that I probably wouldn’t find people here to be as friendly as in Fargo. However, I haven’t found that to be true.

I had to have some surgery a while back and I was told not to lift anything heavy. I was at the grocery store and I asked the checkout girl if she would put a bag in my cart for me, and she did. When I was in the parking lot ready to load my car, a lady came running over. She had been next to me in the checkout line and had overheard my conversation. She asked if she could lift things into the trunk for me. So you see, there are nice people everywhere! Maybe it helps to be over 80!”

– Marge, Minneapolis

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“April 15 of this year, we had a snowstorm that left about 17 inches of snow on the ground. My daughter was working her shift at Jamestown Regional Medical Center. Her shift ended at about 10:30 p.m., and she asked if she could stay at the hospital for the night because of the storm; she was scheduled to work at 6 in the morning. Unfortunately, the beds for staff were full.

My daughter slowly navigated her pickup past the closed-off interstate and took the bypass road. She got stuck a couple of times, and at one point, a trucker who was in the ditch came out into the blowing snow and helped to dig her out. My daughter finally made it home. I’ll be forever thankful to the trucker who came out of his cab in the bad weather to help my daughter, who was six months pregnant.”